


Recovering

by BardofHeartDive



Series: Tumblr Posts [5]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Cuddles, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, Medical, Multi, OT3, Post-Canon, Recovery, mShenga
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-18 14:40:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8165467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BardofHeartDive/pseuds/BardofHeartDive
Summary: James, Kaidan, and John recover post war.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Mass Effect Poly Week on tumblr.

John looks more like a mass of bandages and tubes than he does a person. The list of problems and complications seems endless: fractures, shock, hypothermia, hypoxia, embolisms, sepsis. The burns are so bad his bed is encased in an isolation box and he is only being treated by sterilized machines. The doctor says he probably won’t survive, and even if he does the chances that he’ll be the same man are infinitesimal. **  
**

Kaidan answers that he’s beaten the odds before.

James barely manages to keep from punching the doctor in the face.

* * *

John is in a medically induced coma for twenty-six days. A machine breathes for him. Bags of fluid feed and hydrate him. His kidneys fail twice and he goes on dialysis until they recover. After his first round of skin grafts he is cleared for standard neutropenic isolation and the box is removed. They wean him off the medications that are keeping him under but he doesn’t regain consciousness. The doctor says he may never.

Kaidan doesn’t leave his side. He talks to him, reads to him, updates him on the rebuilding. He helps the aide reposition and clean him and learns his range of motion exercises from physical therapy. He sleeps in a chair pulled up next to the bed so that he is the first thing he sees in the morning and the last thing he sees at night.

James brings clean clothes and toiletries from home. He packs poutine and huevos rancheros and stays to make sure Kaidan eats some of it. He sends update messages to the Normandy crew and Alliance brass but makes sure to actually call Mrs. A. She always sounds better after they’ve talked for a while.

* * *

John’s heart stops for a minute and fifteen seconds. The nurses pump more medications through the IVs and strap an automatic compression device to his chest. The doctor gives calm, even orders and they are eventually rewarded with somewhat normal rhythm on the monitor. Six minutes later it changes again. They have to shock him twice but they get him back. The doctor wants to place an internal/external pacemaker and defibrillator.

Kaidan signs the paperwork.

James goes to the bathroom and locks himself in a stall to make sure no one sees him break down and bawl.

* * *

John is stable but still not awake. Another forty-nine days tick by. The doctor says there’s nothing to do but wait.

Kaidan agrees to come home for one night. He crawls naked into James’ arms in their bed. His touches are a cry for comfort as desperate as his voice as he whispers _“Please.”_

James is gentle with him as they make love. His body provides the reassurances that words could never manage. When they’re both sated they lie twined together, still and silent. Even with two, the bed is too big.

* * *

John’s third set of grafts are taking well and the bandages are removed. The next week he starts bucking the ventilator so they take out the intubation tube and switch him to a mask. He looks something like himself again, albeit a paler, frailer version. The doctor says the grafts have healed enough that it’s safe to touch his skin.

Kaidan slips his hand into his husband’s.

James presses a kiss to his cheek and whispers, “We’re here, Loco. We’re both right here.”

* * *

John has been opening his eyes on and off for almost a month now but only in response to pain and only for a few moments. He’s also been saying both Kaidan’s name and James’ but the sounds are meaningless and hollow. Then one day when James is getting ready to leave for the night, he says John’s name and he opens his eyes. He watches the younger man with intensely thoughtful eyes then says, “James.”

Kaidan’s eyes fill with tears. They spill over when John looks at him, seeing him for the first time since London and says “Kaidan.”

James lets out a victorious whoop that rings through the whole hospital.

* * *

John has to learn everything again. To swallow, to roll, to move his own limbs. But he made it through bootcamp, and he made it through the Villa, and he’ll be damned if civilian rehab gets the better of him. The doctor is talking about discharge in the next few weeks as long as they can set up home services and visiting nurses.

Kaidan has a hard time with the therapy sessions. Somehow carrying on idle conversations with John semiconscious was easier than encouraging him as he struggles to lift his arms against gravity. Watching his men working together to sit at the side of the bed for a new record of ten minutes, he finds a new gratitude and respect for both of them. They need each other: the three of them. More importantly they’re _good_ for each other.

James knows when to push and when to ease up. He knows when to demand more and when to call it for the day. And, sure, he celebrates pushing up from sitting to standing with as much enthusiasm as he used to give a second set of twenty pull-ups, but it’s good to be back to something he knows.

* * *

John has been lying on the bathroom floor in soiled pants for fifteen minutes before he finally calls for help. Kaidan and James both come for him and the look on their faces makes him wish he had never woken up. He thinks it would be better somehow if there was at least a hint of ridicule or resentment but there isn’t. It’s all love and acceptance.

Kaidan helps him out of his dirty clothes and into the shower. They have a chair since he still can’t stand for more than a few minutes but the shower head is detachable and he can reach all the water controls. John hears him leave but can’t bring himself to ask where he’s going.

James has the mess cleaned up by the time he’s done in the shower. He’s exhausted and he needs help getting to the couch and settled in for a nap. James hears Kaidan come back while he’s making lunch but he doesn’t come help him in the kitchen. After they eat, James goes to the bathroom and finds new grab bars installed around the toilet and the tub.

* * *

John is joking when he says he was probably less trouble when he was unconscious but the next thing he knows James is screaming at him. Frustration with his own limitations coupled with restless edginess are ignited by stunned confusion and he is suddenly yelling right back. It ends with James storming out of the room, slamming the door hard enough that it echos through the apartment.

Kaidan drags them both to the living room and tells them they need to talk about it. Then he settles into one of the chairs himself and waits for one of them to start.

James is grateful that they both let him talk first. It takes him a long time to find the words but when he does they all spill out at once. “He was with you the whole time,” he says to John, throwing a nod toward Kaidan. “He would have followed anywhere you went. Even if it meant leaving me alone. And every time I saw you in that bed, all I could think was that I couldn’t lose you both. I can’t.” This time, people see him cry but they also hold him while he does.

* * *

John is embarrassed to come to bed. He was never beefy like James, never broad like Kaidan, but there was a lean strength to him that is now gone, wasted away over months of disuse. He is acutely aware of the way his knees have gone knobby and the way his skin hangs loose with no muscle beneath it. But when he joins them under the covers and they slip his clothes off him, their hands are so reverent that all his self-consciousness melts away.

Kaidan snakes one arm under his head and rests the other on his hip. He can feel John’s shoulder blades, vertebrae, and ribs against his chest but he can also feel them expand and contract with every breath. He relishes the soft sigh that escapes John as he snuggles backward into his arms and finally starts to relax.

James presses his cheek into the crook of John’s neck and feels a nuzzle, then a kiss against the top of his head. Their hearts beat against each other, not the same rhythm but a perfect counterpoint. His fingers find Kaidan’s and receive a quick loving squeeze. Eventually, tangled together in a perfect human braid, they all fall asleep.


End file.
